


Special Magic

by lauren3210



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Partners, Fluff, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-02-25
Packaged: 2018-03-15 05:01:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3434531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lauren3210/pseuds/lauren3210
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry was seriously considering the fact that his partner might be completely insane.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Special Magic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [capitu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/capitu/gifts).



> For **capitu,** because she's gorgeous and deserves all the birthday presents. I hope you like it, darling!  <3

Harry was seriously considering the fact that his partner might be completely insane.

It wasn’t the first time the thought had wandered through his mind; he’d been given cause to think it numerous times since he’d been partnered with Draco _bloody_ Malfoy a few months ago. How the git had ever made it through Auror training and passed, Harry would never know. Surely all the candidates had gone through some kind of psych evaluation, right? Although, Harry pondered now, it could have just been him that they’d subjected to rigorous and frankly far too personal questions before declaring him fit for Auror duty. Maybe the Ministry had been a bit concerned about that time Harry had been a horcrux for Voldemort and then died and come back to life after a brief conversation with Dumbledore. He knew he should have kept some of that stuff to himself.

So now Harry sat, in a ridiculously uncomfortable chair, his arms tied behind his back, and contemplated the very real possibility that he had a nutter as a partner. It helped distract him from the pain. And the inane grin that was currently lifting the side of Malfoy’s face that Harry could see.

It had been odd, Harry had thought, when he’d been told that Malfoy was to be his partner out in the field. According to the Unspeakable department, there were certain magical energies that worked together more cohesively than others, and apparently Malfoy and Harry had been two of the most compatible partners they’d seen in a long time. Of course, the entire lot of Unspeakables were a few sandwiches short of a picnic, so Harry wasn’t entirely sure that he believed a word they said. But it hadn’t been the fact that he’d been paired with Malfoy that had been so odd, but rather the look on the twat’s face as they were told, sat together in Dawlish’s office, ready to be given their first assignment. Malfoy had looked angry for a long moment, and Harry had spent a good number of minutes thinking of all the ways in which he would need to watch his back, until Dawlish explained what the Unspeakables had said about them and he watched Malfoy’s face change from almost incandescent rage into something that looked suspiciously like _delight._ Harry hadn’t even known what to do with that, nor had he known how to react to the almost blinding smile Malfoy had graced him with as they left the office. The force of that smile had made Harry stumble, and before he could catch up Malfoy had already Apparated to the Neo Death Eater meeting place and run into battle with a cry that could only have been described as _joyous._

Later, once the small group of idiots who had been meeting to discuss taking over the Ministry - there had been _five_ of them, for Godric’s sake, and from what Harry could tell after he showed up, the best spell any of them could muster had been the Confundus Charm, so how they thought they had any hope whatsoever was beyond him - Harry had chalked Malfoy’s exuberance up to the first time they were out in the field without supervision. It _had_ been a heady experience, even Harry could admit that. It had felt almost like when he and Ron and Hermione had been alternately camping and breaking into places and generally fleeing for their lives, only this time he wasn’t a seventeen year old kid and he’d been properly trained for this sort of thing and so he felt for the first time as though he wasn’t completely in over his head. It had felt good, good enough that he’d even asked Malfoy to join him for a drink in the Leaky, as a celebration for their first and successful mission. Of course, Malfoy had sneered at him and declared that he had much better things to do with his free time than spend it with a speccy git, and had sashayed out of their shared cubicle with his nose in the air. Harry figured that the sheer glee he had seen on Malfoy’s face as they’d worked together, firing spell after spell at the five idiots who thought they could take down the Ministry with a _Confundus Charm,_ had simply been a fluke, a one off brought on by the adrenalin of finally being off on missions and doing what they’d been training to do for the last three years. The moment had passed, and from then on they would be back to how they had been all through training, barely tolerating each other and only watching each other’s backs if they felt like it.

Except, it _hadn’t_ been like that. Sure, when they were stuck in the office together slogging through paperwork, Malfoy would barely even look at Harry, sometimes even when he was sneering at him, which was slightly weird, because most of the time Malfoy liked to watch Harry’s reactions when he said something; he liked to make sure that his barbs hit the right spot. But when they were in the field, Malfoy always had that smug look on his face, although it was never directed at Harry. Instead, it was given to all their targets, as though he knew something they didn’t. Like he thought he was invincible.

It was terribly frustrating for Harry, because he constantly found himself fumbling to keep up with Malfoy, who seemed to throw himself into the fray so completely that it was as though he had a death wish. More than once, Harry had been on the receiving end of a few nasty hexes because he’d had to throw up a Shield Charm between Malfoy and whatever danger the git was rushing headlong into and left himself open to attack. Harry quickly became a regular patient at St Mungo’s, and although Malfoy always accompanied him and stayed until whatever damage he had received had been reversed while Harry glared at him from the hospital bed, all he’d ever say to Harry’s increasingly exasperated cries of _what the bloody hell were you thinking_ and _you could have got me bloody killed you wanker_ was a sniffy, “Stop whining, Potter, it’s not like you haven’t handled worse.”

Which, okay, is true, because _Voldemort_ and _dying_ and _giant bloody snake_ and _Voldemort,_ but still, it’s a bit bloody much for his Auror partner to keep leaving him out to dry just because he’s _handled worse._

And so now, after being tied to a really uncomfortable chair for almost twelve hours, his wand and his glasses ripped away from him and then the shit swiftly and efficiently beaten out of him, Harry thought that it was perfectly reasonable of him to be really bloody angry with Malfoy right now.

Except that he couldn’t even be really angry, because he was now almost ninety-eight percent certain that his partner was much more than a few cards short of a complete deck. It was the only possible reason for the smug grin Malfoy had sported all during his own systematic beating, even as he wheezed for air and blood from his split lip had trickled down his chin. It was still there now, even after the thugs - slightly more organised than the bunch they’d caught out in the woods their first time out together, but still relying more heavily on brawn rather than brains - had left the room. Harry had been hoping that the smirk had been some desperate form of bravado on the part of the Slytherin, but now that idea had been completely dashed to pieces by the words that had just fallen out of Malfoy’s blood-slicked lips.

“Say that again?” Harry squinted at Malfoy, sitting next to him only a few feet away, hoping he was imagining the expectant look on his partner’s face.

“Didn’t you hear me the first time?”

Harry was close enough to see that Malfoy rolled his eyes. He wanted to punch him. If his arms weren’t currently falling asleep in their position tied behind his back, he would absolutely punch him.

Malfoy sighed. “I said, ‘I think now would be a good time for you to do your thing’.”

Yep. Draco Malfoy was mental. If Harry got out of here in one piece, the first thing he’d have to do is make sure to get him checked out at St Mungo’s. He’d probably cracked after spending all that time with Voldemort living at the Manor. Harry could understand it; someone would have to already be a bit crazy to _not_ go crazy while having to live with Snake-Face in their own home.

“What _‘thing’_ is it that you expect me to do?” Harry asked carefully; he’d heard that you shouldn’t try to break crazy people out of their hallucinations.

Malfoy rolled his eyes again, and Harry resisted the urge to poke him in them. Not that he could - he couldn’t even feel his fingers anymore; the ropes were far too tight - but he managed to stop himself from thinking about doing it. Just. Almost. Okay, so he imagined it with a huge amount of creativity, but he tried to at least _look_ as though he wasn’t. He probably just looked constipated, but it was the thought that counted.

“You know, your uncanny ability to get out of any situation with barely a scratch on you.” Malfoy leaned as close as his bonds would allow. “Is it a secret, whatever it is that you do? I could shut my eyes if you like.”

“My uncanny... what?” Harry was confused, and as much as he wanted to let Malfoy stay under his current delusion - at least until Harry could get him to the Janus Thickey ward - he didn’t know what the right answer could possibly be to that.

Malfoy snorted. “Oh come on, you don’t need pretend with me, we’re partners now. And it’s not like I didn’t already know. If you don’t want me to know the _how,_ that’s fine, but there’s really no need to keep it completely under wraps in front of me. We are partners now, after all.”

“I don’t. I don’t understand.” Harry frowned and stared hard at Malfoy, trying to bring him into clearer focus without his glasses to help him.

“Oh fine! You need me to say it out loud?” Malfoy pulled himself as straight as he possibly could and turned to face Harry, the metal chair legs scraping on the stone floor beneath them. “Potter, I know that you have some special magical ability that gets you out of situations.” He nodded sharply, and Harry felt his mouth fall open.

“I don’t have any- what the hell are you on about, Malfoy?” To hell with playing into his delusions; what the hell was Harry supposed to say to that?

“You know, whatever special magic it is that helps you get out of things. Why do you think I was so excited to have you as a partner? With the Boy Who Won’t Bloody Die watching my back, I wouldn’t have to worry about myself so much. I could just do the job, because you’d get us out of anything that came up. Like now, for example.” He jiggled his arms against his restraints pointedly.

“What? Special magic? I don’t have any special bloody magic Malfoy!”

Malfoy rolled his eyes again. Harry was really beginning to despise that expression. “I’ve already told you, Potter. You don’t need to hide it from me anymore. Now get us out of here, just do whatever it is that you do, I won’t look if you don’t want me to.” And then he closed those eyes and sat perfectly still, patiently waiting for something that would not come.

It was all starting to make sense; a terrible, horrible sense that had Harry wishing he could smack his head against a wall. What a pity he was tied to a chair in the middle of a basement in a house in the middle of a forest in fucking Wales.

“Malfoy,” Harry said slowly, after taking a deep breath to try and keep himself calm. “That _‘special magic’_ you think I have? Do you want to know what it’s called?”

Malfoy opened his eyes. “Well, I’m not sure now is the proper time for this discussion, but okay, yes, I would like to know what it’s called. I confess I’ve wondered about it for a while.”

Harry felt the last of his calm drain out of him. “It’s called _luck,_ you magnificent prat!”

Malfoy scowled. “Why ask if you weren’t going to tell me the truth?”

“I _am_ telling you the bloody truth!” Harry tried to keep his voice down, but still it echoed off the cold stone walls surrounding them. The group of Neo Death Eaters would probably be drawn back down to them with all his shouting, but he couldn’t stop himself.

Malfoy raised an elegant eyebrow. “You’re trying to tell me that every situation you’ve ever escaped has been down to _luck_?”

“Yes!” Merlin’s saggy left tit, this was worse than the idea of Malfoy being completely insane.

Malfoy’s gaze narrowed. “Prove it,” he said forcefully.

“How the bloody hell can I prove _luck_ you insufferable git?”

Malfoy thought for a moment, his tongue moving across the cut on his lip. “The troll. Halloween our first year at school. How did you and your minions defeat it if it wasn’t accidental magic?”

“They’re not _‘minions’_ ,” Harry said automatically. “I climbed on the thing’s back to try and stop it from getting Hermione. Ron hit it with its own club using _Wingardium Leviosa_ and my wand went up its nose as it fell. We didn’t even kill it, we only managed to knock it out.”

Malfoy’s eyes had widened slightly, but he pushed on. “The Basilisk in second year?”

Harry sighed. “Dumbledore’s phoenix, Fawkes. He gave me the Sorting Hat, which gave me the sword of Gryffindor. I stabbed the Basilisk as it tried to bite me. And it still almost killed me, if Fawkes hadn’t been there to give me his tears then I would have died in that Chamber.”

“That thing with the Hippogriff?”

“Time Turner.”

“Getting through all those Twi-wizard Trials?”

“Barty Crouch Jr set me up to win them.”

“The graveyard?” Malfoy’s voice was quieter now, in contrast to Harry shouting his answers.

“My wand’s core connected with his. So Fawkes again, in a way.”

“And the Manor?” Harry looked up sharply. Malfoy looked pale and sickly in the weak light cast by the few floating candles in the room. “None of you had wands, and even that house elf couldn’t have undone the magicked locks on the door. How did you get out?”

“Luck,” Harry said again, his voice softer than it had been for a while. “Wormtail opened the door, and he owed me a Life Debt. If it had been anyone else, it wouldn’t have worked. It was all just luck, Malfoy.”

Malfoy’s throat worked, and he shook his head slightly. “But you, you defeated him! You took my wand so that you could master the Elder Wand he was using! You knew to do that!”

Harry shook his head. “It was still just luck, Malfoy. Voldemort didn’t even have the wand when we were held at the Manor, how could I have known that I had to grab _your_ wand? You were there, it was complete chaos, you must remember that? All I was thinking about was getting everyone out, there wasn’t time to think about strategy.” He sighed a deep sigh. “There’s never time for that, everything always happens so fast.”

“So, you’re really not anymore powerful than the rest of us?”

Harry looked back at Malfoy, expecting to see derision, maybe even disappointment on the blond’s face. But instead, there was a look that Harry couldn’t place. He really wished he still had his glasses, because he was almost certain that the current look made Malfoy even more beautiful than usual, and he was sorry he was missing out on its full effect.

“Nope, I’m really not.” Harry squinted, still trying to discern the look on Malfoy’s face. “Is that why you’ve been acting like you have a death wish since we were partnered together? Because you thought having me watching your back made you invincible?”

Malfoy flushed and frowned, and Harry was sorry to see the indecipherable look go away. “What I thought doesn’t matter, Potter, what matters is how the hell we’re going to get out of this place.”

“You mean this place that you rushed into without doing any spell checks or waiting for back up because you figured I could _‘Special Magic’_ us out of anything that came up?”

“There’s no need to be sarcastic.”

“Actually I think there’s every need, seeing as I’m currently tied to a chair and losing all feeling in my fingers and stuck in a cold bloody basement _without my wand.”_ Harry didn’t know if he wanted to smack his own head or Malfoy’s into a wall at this point.

“Still, sarcasm doesn’t exactly help with that, is all I’m saying.”

Nope, definitely Malfoy’s head.

Harry sighed and looked around. Despite not being able to see much of anything clearly, what with the lack of both his glasses and light in the dark underground room, he thought he could just make out a dark line of something on the wall closest to him. It was probably just a mark on the stone, maybe even just a cobweb, but Harry started the long hard journey of hopping his chair over to it regardless.

It was slow going, his ankles tied to the chair legs making it impossible to move more than an inch at a time. Harry ignored Malfoy’s repeated questions and just kept on going, stopping to breathe every couple of minutes to listen for sounds of someone on the other side of the door. He was rewarded for his efforts as he finally reached the wall and found a nail embedded in the stone, at almost the exact height of his bound wrists. He shuffled his chair around and started sawing at the ropes, wincing a few times as the angle slipped and he sliced through skin instead. Sweat was dripping from his brow by the time he felt a notable loosening of his bonds. He heaved against them, his already stretched shoulders burning in protest, and the ropes snapped. He let out a quiet shout and shook his hands in front of him, flexing his fingers to bring back the feeling into them.

“Stop messing about, Potter, and come and untie me!”

Harry rolled his eyes and hoped it annoyed Malfoy as much as it did him. “Sorry, I was just trying to get my _Special Magic_ back into my fingers, you know, that thing called a _blood supply.”_

“Oh ha, ha. Shut up and get over here.”

Harry leaned down and pulled at the ropes around his ankles. He stood up and jumped on the spot a few times, glad to be out of the most uncomfortable chair he’d ever sat on. He wondered if it had been magically altered to be that uncomfortable; his arse had gone numb after the first ten minutes of sitting in it.

“Are you training for the ballet?” Malfoy whispered furiously. “Untie me!”

Harry gritted his teeth against the urge to just leave the git where he was and bent down to untie Malfoy’s ropes. As soon as he was free from his own torture chair, Malfoy got up and walked over to the wall, bending down to inspect the nail. “It can’t just be luck,” Harry heard him whisper.

“Right, we’re still locked in here, and we still don’t have our wands,” Harry said, pacing as he tried to come up with a plan. “I think our best bet is to surprise the next person to come in here to check on us. We grab their wand and we get out.”

“They’ll have likely put up anti-Apparition wards on the house,” Malfoy said, stepping closer to the door.

“You think they’re clever enough to have thought of that?”

“It’s a pretty safe bet. It’s the first thing they’ll have thought of once they decided to hold a meeting indoors. If they bar against people getting in, they won’t have to worry about escape routes for themselves.”

This was why Harry hadn’t been bothered when he’d been partnered up with Malfoy; he was always able to work out how the other side thought. Probably because he’d been on that side, once. But still, it was useful.

“We’ll need to get out of the house first, then.” Harry resumed his pacing. “We can’t stop to try and capture any of them, and we can’t look for our own wands. We just jump whoever comes in, grab their wand, get out and then Apparate straight to the Ministry. Agreed?”

“What if more than one person comes down?”

Harry thought for a moment, then shrugged. “There’s two of us, and they’ll still need to come through the door one at a time. If there’s more than one, one of us can keep the door shut while the other physically disarms the first person in.”

Malfoy nodded. “I’ll disarm, you hold anyone else off.”

“You’ll have to grab his wand arm, hold it out of the way-”

“Yes, _thank_ you, Potter, I did do basic training. I know how to disarm someone physically.” Malfoy gave him a pointed look, and then stilled. “I think I can hear someone.”

Harry took up position beside the door, waiting to shove the thick piece of wood back against anyone else trying to get in, while Malfoy stood just to the side of the handle. As soon as the door started to open, Malfoy was a whirl of movement. He grabbed the Death Eater’s wrist and yanked it out and to the side before the man had even taken a step over the threshold, pulling him further into the room. Harry braced against the door but felt no resistance; the man had come down to the basement alone. He closed the door to keep the noise down, although there was surprisingly little. It made sense once Harry turned around though, because Malfoy had the man in a headlock, his face slowly turning redder and redder as his air supply was cut off by Malfoy’s arm. Instead of stepping in to help out, Harry found himself leaning against the door and watching the fight. He almost felt sorry for the Neo Death Eater, because Malfoy was absolutely _vicious_ when it came to hand to hand combat. Hair pulling, nails, biting, _nothing_ was off limits for Malfoy, and he was quite obviously using any and all tactics to get the upper hand. Harry was almost disappointed it was over when with a final and brutal elbow to the solar plexus, Malfoy reached out and plucked the wand from the man’s hand and let him crumple to the floor.

Malfoy straightened up and smoothed a hand through his hair as he held the wand out to Harry. He shook his head. “You took it from him, it won’t work as well for me.” He cautiously pulled open the door and blinked into the gloomy passageway. “If we can get up and out of the house before being spotted, you can Apparate and side-along me.”

Malfoy nodded and gestured through the door. “After you.”

“Actually,” Harry bit his lip. “I can barely see without my glasses. You’ll have to go first. And guide me so I don’t trip and make a load of noise.”

Malfoy nodded and grabbed Harry by the elbow, but slid his grip down to his wrist as they reached a flight of stairs. The gloom slowly dissipated as they ascended and left the dark basement behind them. Malfoy’s hand slipped from his wrist as they entered the hallway they’d been dragged down before being thrown down the stairs. Harry could still feel the bruises left over from where he’d hit almost every stone riser on the way down.

Malfoy touched Harry’s shoulder to get his attention, and pointed to a door at the opposite end to where they’d been brought in hours earlier. Harry could see fuzzy daylight beyond it, and he grinned and nodded. They’d almost reached the door when there was the sound of footsteps behind them, followed by a shout as someone charged them from behind.

“Go!” Malfoy shouted, grabbing Harry by the hand and pulling him between himself and the door, brandishing his stolen wand at the woman and two men who were running down the hallway towards them. Harry fumbled with the door handle and then gave up, rearing back and kicking at the lock until the door flew open with a sudden bang. He yanked on the hand still held tight in his grip and jumped down the few steps into the overgrown grass. He saw the edge of the property where they had Apparated in late the previous evening and ran towards it, hoping they would still be able to Disapparate back out at the same spot.

After stumbling through the doorway behind him, Malfoy caught up to Harry and then almost overtook him, his longer legs able to carry him quicker across the uneven ground. Harry heard shouts and screamed hexes behind him and bent forward, trying to make himself as small a target as he could. Malfoy had also recognised their earlier Apparition spot, because he came to a sudden halt and turned into Harry at the same time as Harry felt a searing pain swipe in an arc up his back. He cried out and fell into Malfoy even as his partner turned on the spot. The last thing he felt was Malfoy’s arms sliding around his waist as everything faded to black.

 

* * *

 

 

Harry moved slowly around his small flat in Muggle London, listlessly making himself a cup of tea and scowling at the empty pizza boxes thrown haphazardly on every available surface. It hadn’t been _Sectumsempra_ that he’d been hit with, so his injury had been a fairly easy fix, despite the severity of the Severing Charm that had been used against him. He was perfectly fine to go back to work, but the Ministry had a policy about work related injuries. Something to do with legal issues, probably. Harry didn’t really care what it was, because all it meant to him was that he was stuck in his empty flat with nothing to do and nobody to talk to, recovering from an injury that had taken less than an hour to heal.

Okay, maybe it had been closer to a day before he had been completely healed, and by all accounts he’d left an astonishing amount of blood on the floor of the Atrium. Harry wasn’t too clear on that point, as he’d been transferred to St Mungo’s before he had regained consciousness. He _had_ seen the state of Malfoy’s usually crisp white shirt once he’d finally woken up, though; the entire thing looked as though it had been dunked in red paint. Harry had been waiting for a dry cleaning bill to turn up on his doorstep ever since.

The raid on the Neo Death Eater’s meeting place had happened while Harry had still been unconscious, which he was still annoyed about. He had also been surprised to learn that Malfoy hadn’t gone with the Auror team; he had instead given them the address and a quick layout and then immediately Apparated to St Mungo’s where, according to Hermione, he had refused to leave Harry’s side until he regained consciousness. Harry wasn’t sure he was completely comfortable with the meaningful looks she had given him when she relayed this information; ever since he had come out to his friends during the first year of Auror training - _after_ his amicable break up with Ginny but _before_ the start of his brief fling with Robert Sloane, Chaser for the Bolton Bludgers - Hermione had taken to trying to set him up with every eligible bachelor in the country. The last thing Harry needed was for Hermione to concentrate her very not-subtle nudges and winks in the direction of his work partner.

Although Harry hadn’t been able to stop himself from wondering if she had a point over the last few days stuck inside his tiny flat by himself. More often than he would like, he found his mind going back to the moment he had woken up in the hospital bed, the feeling of Malfoy’s fingers sliding through his hair still fresh in his memory. He couldn’t stop himself from remembering how Malfoy had refused to leave until Harry had been given the all clear, despite how exhausted he must have been after their night held captive together. He’d apparently even insisted that he have his own injuries treated in the same room, so loathe was he to leave Harry.

Harry wasn’t blind; he knew Malfoy was gorgeous. From a purely aesthetic point of view, he was even perfect, not to mention just Harry’s personal type. With that white blond hair, slender figure, and those grey eyes that were always so expressive no matter how hard Malfoy tried to keep his emotions in check, not to mention that wickedly sharp tongue and the way when he smiled it seemed to Harry as though it was his own personal _Lumos._ If he was anyone else, Harry knew he’d have been drooling all over him from the moment they met.

But he wasn’t anybody else. He was Draco Malfoy, the boy who had insulted Hagrid upon their first meeting in Madam Malkin’s; who had tried to get Harry expelled on numerous occasions; who had broken his nose and almost _killed Ron_ and tried to trap him in the Room of Requirement with an idiot who didn’t know how to control the Fiendfyre spell. And yeah, a lot of what Malfoy had done had been because of Voldemort and his terrible excuse for a father, which was why Harry had spoken up for him at the trials after the war; how he was able to work with Malfoy now. But just because he could forgive the things that Malfoy had felt forced into doing - and he had forgiven him, Harry wouldn’t be able to work so closely with him day in and day out if all he could think about were those things - that didn’t mean that he should forgive Malfoy for being a giant prat. Even if you took away all the really bad things Malfoy had done, that still left a list of things as long as Harry’s arm that Malfoy had done just because he was an insufferable git.

So yes, while Harry could appreciate Malfoy’s attractiveness, he couldn’t forget who he was to _Harry,_ so any possible attraction between them was never going to happen. Which was a _good thing,_ because they worked together, and everybody knew that office romances never end well. So if Harry occasionally found himself staring at Malfoy’s arse or tracking the movement of his tongue when he licked his lips or wondering if his hair felt as soft as it looked, then it was only because Harry could appreciate beauty and he hadn’t gotten laid in a long time. It didn’t mean that he found Malfoy _himself_ attractive.

Besides, even if he did, there was no way that Malfoy would ever reciprocate his feelings, so it would be nothing but a waste of time anyway. Because Harry wasn’t an idiot, and while he could attest to the fact that he and Malfoy had learned to get along with each other during Auror training, that was pretty much as far as they were ever going to get. And yes, there may have been a few times when Malfoy smiled that genuine little smile as he looked at Harry, and yes more than once Malfoy may have slung his arm over Harry’s shoulders and walked them out of their shared cubicle and yes, there may have been that one time when Malfoy had leaned in and wiped a bit of chocolate frosting off of Harry’s bottom lip with his thumb and he may have been smiling that private little smile as he did it, but all that meant was that if they could both just keep a handle on their tempers when they were around each other then maybe at some point down the line they could be friends.

Because the truth was that Harry actually found the git quite entertaining. He was funny, at least when he wasn’t aiming his sharp wit at either Harry or his friends. He was good at his job, when he wasn’t running headlong into things without thinking first. He could even be kind when he put some thought into it, like the time he brought Harry home early from St Mungo’s and tucked him into bed and slept in the chair in the bedroom, because somehow Malfoy just _knew_ Harry hated it when he was stuck in hospital overnight. Or that time when they’d been fighting in close quarters with a couple of Neo Death Eaters, and when the dust had cleared Malfoy had bent down and pulled a small child out from where she had been cowering under the sofa. Harry hadn’t even known she was there, and he’d watched with something warm and comfortable curling beneath his ribs as Malfoy had held the shivering child against himself and murmured soft words in her ear until she calmed down. He was also calm and collected whenever they came across people who hadn’t forgiven his role in the war, keeping his head held high and his gaze resolutely forward even as they heard loud mutters of _ex death eater scum_ and _should be rotting in Azkaban with your father._ Malfoy never let on that it bothered him, even as Harry could see the turmoil swirling like an angry sea in those clear grey eyes. It made Harry remember Fifth year, and how hard it had been for him when people had been muttering about him behind his back; he had certainly not been able to weather it with as much grace as Malfoy.

So yes, maybe they could be friends, Harry thought to himself as the doorbell to his flat rang impatiently. But that was all they could ever be, because he just didn’t find Malfoy attractive.

“Potter.”

It was raining, and Malfoy hadn’t bothered with a Repelling Charm. It made his hair gleam golden rather than its usual silver, and droplets of water clung to his blond eyelashes like diamonds. Malfoy blinked and one detached itself, rolling down his flushed cheek to his jaw. His robes were imbued with water repellant charms and raindrops glistened across his shoulders and rolled down over the dark material. Malfoy hardly ever wore his maroon coloured Auror’s robes because apparently _“red just doesn’t go with my skin tone, Potter”._ Harry looked at the dark pink tinging Malfoy’s cheeks and the red of the inside of his lips as he was graced with one of those small private smiles and decided that in this, Malfoy was most definitely wrong; red possibly suited him more than anything else.

Oh God. Harry was fucked.

 

* * *

 

 

“I wanted to apologise,” Malfoy said, sticking his chin in the air and quite obviously trying not to sneer.

Harry waited, watching as yet another raindrop detached itself from Malfoy’s lashes and dripped down his cheek. “Er, are you going to, then?”

“I just did.”

“That wasn’t an apology. That was a statement about a forthcoming apology, but you’ve kind of stalled on the actual sorry part.”

The sneer that had been quivering on Malfoy’s lips finally came out in full force, and Harry grinned. “You want to come in?”

“No, I want to stand out here in the freezing rain forever.” Malfoy rolled his eyes as he pushed past Harry into the hallway. Harry’s grin turned into a fond smile at the expression.

He shut the door and followed Malfoy into his living room, watching as Malfoy spelled himself dry and looked anywhere but at Harry as his mouth opened and closed several times. It amused him, Harry realised with a dawning sense of horror. _Everything_ Malfoy did amused him, whereas it used to make him want to punch him. Then he thought about it and shrugged to himself, deciding to just go with it. He’d spent enough time in the past not letting himself have things; where was the harm in indulging in a little useless crush?

“Shall I make you a cuppa while you work yourself up to that apology?” Harry repressed a smile as Malfoy stuttered.

“I’m sorry,” Malfoy blurted out, suddenly and far too loudly, looking vaguely horrified at himself.

“For what?” Harry wasn’t teasing him this time, as fun as it was to watch that blush crawl up Malfoy’s cheeks; he truly didn’t know what it was Malfoy wanted to apologise for.

Malfoy looked down at the floor between them. “It would seem,” he began haltingly, “that my assumptions have put you in harm’s way on several occasions. I’ve been a bad partner, and for that I apologise.”

He kept his gaze on the floor, and Harry didn’t like it; Malfoy should never look... _cowed._ He stepped closer, ducking down to try and catch Malfoy’s eye, suddenly needing to know something. “You know, when we were at school, you hated the fact that other people thought I was special in some way. When did that change?”

“It didn’t,” Malfoy said immediately, almost a reflex, but then he sighed, still avoiding Harry’s eye. “You always managed to get out of situations, even when we were training.” He sounded very put out by it. “And so I started to think, maybe you weren’t just an idiot who always let other people do you thinking for you -”

“Oh, thanks very much!”

“- and then when Dawlish partnered us together I thought it was just about having the Great Harry Potter keeping an eye on the ex-death eater -”

“Draco, you know that’s not true,” Harry interrupted quietly. “You proved yourself during training, everyone saw that.”

Malfoy waved his hand impatiently. “But then when he explained about the magical signatures, I thought... I thought...”

“You thought what?” Harry asked, when it became clear that Malfoy was struggling.

Malfoy bit his lip and hung his head. “That maybe it meant I was special in some way too,” he admitted in a whisper.

He looked so downtrodden that Harry’s heart almost broke for him. It didn’t feel right, seeing Malfoy look that dejected. Malfoy was the man who weathered insults with dignity, who held his chin up and worked hard to prove himself, who looked everyone in the eye and silently dared them to say something about his past. Malfoy looking like this, small and meek and unsure, it felt all kinds of wrong to Harry, so he did the only thing he could think of to do.

He stepped in close to Malfoy and put both hands on his shoulders. “I think you’re pretty special, Draco,” he said quietly.

“Yeah?” And Malfoy looked up at him then, and Harry was overwhelmed with the desire to kiss him, a feeling he realised he’d been having for a long time now.

So he did. Harry pressed his lips to Malfoy’s, the warmth from his mouth sending a shiver down Harry’s spine. He slid his hands up to cup Malfoy’s jaw, rubbing his thumbs across those beautiful cheekbones as he deepened the kiss, letting his tongue peek out to lick across the seam of Malfoy’s lips. Malfoy made a small noise and stepped back, his hands on Harry’s forearms and his grey eyes on Harry’s mouth.

“I -” he said, and blinked once. Then he stepped sharply around Harry and out into the hallway.

Harry waited until he heard the front door open and close, and then put his head into his hands. “Where’s the harm in a little useless crush?” He mumbled to himself. “Well, Harry, you could always slap an unwanted _kiss_ straight onto your partner’s mouth. _Bloody hell!”_

“You have a crush on me?”

Harry yelped and flailed around, staring at Malfoy who was leaning against the doorway. “I thought you left,” he squeaked out.

Malfoy stood up straight and took a couple of steps closer. “Since when?”

“But. But I heard you open the front door! And then it closed!”

“It wasn’t unwanted.”

“It wasn’t?” Harry knew his voice was getting steadily higher, but he couldn’t seem to make it stop.

“I thought it was out of pity, so I was going to leave, but then I decided to tell you that I didn’t want your pity. And then I heard you mumbling.” Malfoy stepped even closer, so close that Harry would only have to lean forward an inch and they would be kissing again. “So, since when?”

“Since you first smiled at me,” Harry blurted, only realising once the words were out that it was true. Ever since that first smile had blinded him, the back of his mind had been constantly wondering what that smile would feel like pressed against one of his own. “And it wasn’t unwanted?” Malfoy shook his head, and Harry licked his lips, noticing with a flare of heat that Malfoy tracked the movement. “How, er, how long have you been, um, not unwanting that?”

Malfoy shrugged, a small, lithe moment that somehow brought him even closer. “A little bit longer than you, I suppose.”

“Oh,” Harry said, and then, “Good.” And then he reached out and grabbed Malfoy by the lapels of his coat and dragged him in for another kiss.

This kiss was different. Whereas the first had been tentative and slow, this one was all heat and movement, Harry’s hands sliding through blond hair and gripping onto the soft strands, Malfoy pulling him in close with a hand to his shoulder and another pressing finger shaped bruises into Harry’s hip. There was little finesse; they pushed and pulled and groped at each other, the kiss going sloppy with far too much tongue and the occasional clash of teeth, until their legs tangled and they fell onto the sofa in a heap, Harry’s head banging painfully against the wooden armrest. They stopped and stared at each other for a moment, and then each moved at the same time to start tugging at each other’s clothes.

Harry pushed Malfoy’s coat forcefully down his arms, trapping him where he was busy trying to get to Harry’s fly. A moment of frustrated wriggling occurred, and then Malfoy’s coat was on the floor and the buttons of his shirt were undone, Harry’s t shirt pushed up to his armpits and the fly of his jeans pulled down. It all happened so quickly that Harry was certain one of them had done some accidental magic to aid them, but then Malfoy’s fingers were pushing beneath his waistband and wrapping around him and he stopped thinking about anything at all.

“Fuck, you’re huge.”

Harry almost whimpered as Malfoy’s hand withdrew, and he blinked up at him as Malfoy moved to pull his jeans down to mid thigh. “What?”

Malfoy stared down at him from where he was perched over his thighs, trousers straining over his erection. Harry wanted to touch it, and then he remembered that he could, this was a thing he could do now, so he reached out and palmed Malfoy through the thin material.

“I wanted to ride you,” Malfoy said on a moan, his hips jerking into Harry’s hand. “But I think we might have to work up to that.” And then he batted Harry’s hand away and leaned over, his mouth closing over the tip of Harry’s dick.

Harry felt it as he hit the back of Malfoy’s mouth and then slid further in, the soft fluttering feeling as Malfoy swallowed around him making his vision white out. His head banged back against the wooden armrest again, but Harry didn’t feel it, could feel nothing except the pressure of Malfoy swallowing him down. He mumbled unthinkingly, “Seems like you have some special magic of your own,” and Malfoy choked.

“Could you maybe hold off on the terrible jokes until _after_ I’m done blowing you?” Malfoy raised an eyebrow, elegant fingers still curled around the inch of Harry’s prick that he couldn’t fit in his mouth, and then swallowed him down again.

Harry groaned and jerked his hips helplessly against the hold Malfoy had him in, and he knew he was only going to last another minute at the most with the way Malfoy was sucking him, saliva dribbling down over his chin and onto his fingers, throat working smoothly and delicately around the tip.

“Fuck, Draco, I’m gonna -” He didn’t have time to finish his warning before he was coming, Malfoy’s lips sliding gently upwards. He felt more than saw, as Malfoy’s mouth left him, and the last of Harry’s orgasm painted his face in streaks of white. In his daze, Harry noted that no, _this_ was Draco’s best look - flushed and panting and covered in Harry’s come.

He sat up fast, toppling Malfoy back in his haste, pulling feverishly at the fly of Malfoy’s trousers, desperate to get a hand on him. He closed his mouth over Malfoy’s swallowing his moans as he stroked him, quickly and clumsily and probably too hard, and the harsh beating of his heart inside his chest only started to calm once he felt the warm wetness of Malfoy’s release.

Harry slumped over until his head rested on Malfoy’s chest, his jeans tight round his thighs and his hand still stuck down Malfoy’s trousers. He felt Malfoy’s hand flop onto his shoulder before sliding up to tangle in his hair, and he smiled into the pale skin, leaving soft kisses wherever he could reach without moving.

“Well,” Malfoy said once he’d gotten his breath back. “I guess the Unspeakable department do know a few things after all,” and Harry snorted his agreement.

* * *

 

Harry was in pain, a lot of it. He’d thought that after having to go through this so many times he would have been used to it by now, but no, regrowing bones hurt just as much the fifteen thousandth time as it did the very first time. He grimaced at the nurse who’d just administered the dose of Skelegro and glared across the room at his partner.

“Oh come on,” Draco whined, slipping closer to the bed as the nurse left the room. “I already said I was sorry.”

“No, you said, ‘oops’.” Harry scowled at Draco, really wishing the bones in his right arm would grow back quicker so that he could thump him.

“It’s the same thing!”

“It is _not,_ you bloody wank-”

Draco kissed him, and Harry forgot for a moment why he was shouting. And then he tried to move his hand to pull Draco closer and remembered all over again. He pulled away to resume shouting, but Draco got there first.

“If you stop complaining, I’ll wank you off until you come all over my face. I know you like that look on me.”

Harry closed his mouth. He supposed there were some advantages to having a nutter for a partner after all.

 

~End~


End file.
